Story In A Bottle Podcast

The tech world is understandably frustrating and at some point, you’ve just had enough. For Katie Smith-Adair, that point came after she watched Sonar, the startup she was working for, blow up. The mobile app was part of a plethora of location-based people finding networks that permeated South by Southwest in 2012, but never really found its footing. Over a bottle of Chardonnay at Fools Gold in Manhattan, Katie talks about her experiences from waiting tables in Portland, Oregon to moving from the agency world to Microsoft and finally how she started PlaceInvaders, a culinary company that hosts unique dining events in amazing residential spaces.

 

What You’ll Learn:

  • How working in the service industry makes you better in the business world
  • The glory and fall of working for one of the hottest startups of the moment
  • The challenge and excitement of switching industries entirely to do what you love
Direct download: SIAB_KAdir_v2.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:28pm EDT

From music promotion to managing bars. From political strategist to startup founder. From consultant to professor. Jeremy Kagan’s gone down many roads over the course of his career. Over a variety bourbons at Fool’s Gold in New York, Jeremy talks about how his career has taken so many different turns, the emotional trauma of running your own startup and how all his experiences prepared him for his latest role as the Managing Director at the Eugene Lang Entrepreneurship Center at Columbia Business School.

What You’ll Learn:

  • How the challenges of the music industry make you smarter in the more traditional business world
  • How to persevere when your startup isn’t moving at the pace it needs for success
  • Why business school can actually be useful for an entrepreneur
Direct download: SIAB_JKagan_v3.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:17am EDT

Leah Finnegan’s journalism journey reads like the resume of someone decades in, which makes what she’s accomplished even more impressive. She first discovered her passion for journalism while working on the newspaper at the University of Texas and parlayed that into a stint at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, where she quickly realized that one does not need a master’s in journalism to be a good journalist. Over coffee and sparkling water, Leah shares how she’s worked her way up the journalism ladder from Gawker to the New York Times to the current Executive Editor of The Outline, the quirky online publication started by Josh Topolsky that recently sold to Bustle.

 

What You’ll Learn:

  • The challenges of going freelance
  • How to differentiate yourself as a media company
  • The value, or lack thereof, of a degree in journalism
  • How the media environment is changing in today’s political climate
Direct download: SIAB_LFinnegan_v1.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:42am EDT

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